The Rus'–Byzantine Treaty, between the

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as le ...

Constantine VII Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zoe Kar ...

and Igor I of Kiev, was concluded either in 944 or 945. It was a result of the Rus'-Byzantine War of 941 undertaken by

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas of ...

against

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

. Its provisions were less advantageous for the Rus' than those of the previous treaty, associated with the name of Igor's predecessor Oleg. It was one of the earliest written sources of Old Russian Law. The text of the treaty, as preserved in the ''

Primary Chronicle The ''Tale of Bygone Years'' ( orv, Повѣсть времѧньныхъ лѣтъ, translit=Pověstĭ vremęnĭnyxŭ lětŭ; ; ; ; ), often known in English as the ''Rus' Primary Chronicle'', the ''Russian Primary Chronicle'', or simply the ...

'', contains agreements regarding the Rus' promise not to attack

Chersonesos Chersonesus ( grc, Χερσόνησος, Khersónēsos; la, Chersonesus; modern Russian and Ukrainian: Херсоне́с, ''Khersones''; also rendered as ''Chersonese'', ''Chersonesos'', contracted in medieval Greek to Cherson Χερσών; ...

, a Byzantine exclave in the

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

(Article 8). The mouth of the

Dnieper River } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and B ...

( Beloberezhye) was to be administrated jointly, although the Rus' were forbidden to winter there and to oppress fishers from Chersonesos (Article 12). Article 2 of the treaty contains provisions on

maritime law Admiralty law or maritime law is a body of law that governs nautical issues and private maritime disputes. Admiralty law consists of both domestic law on maritime activities, and private international law governing the relationships between priva ...

. In order to distinguish peaceful merchants from raiders, each ship of the Rus' was to bear a charter of the Kievan prince, explaining how many people and how many ships would sail to Constantinople. Otherwise, the Rus' ships might be apprehended by the imperial authorities. The text also contains a list of Rus' plenipotentiaries (no fewer than fifty are named). The overwhelming majority have Norse names. One part of the Rus' envoys swear to their pagan gods, while another part invoke the name of the Christian God, indicating that a portion of the Rus' elite was Christianized. The total number of names is 76, among whom 12 belong to the

ruling family A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A d ...

, 11 to emissaries, 27 to other agents, and 26 to merchants. In the princely family, there are three Slavic names ''Svjatoslav'', son of prince Igor' (Ingvar) and ''Volodislav'' and ''Predslava'' (of unknown relation). The other members of the family have Norse names, i.e.

Olga Olga may refer to: People and fictional characters * Olga (name), a given name, including a list of people and fictional characters named Olga or Olha * Michael Algar (born 1962), English singer also known as "Olga" Places Russia * Olga, Russia, ...

('' Helga''), Akun ('' Hákon''), Sfanda (''Svanhildr''), Uleb ('' Óleifr''), etc. The emissaries also have Old Norse names except for three who have Finnish names. Olga has a representative by the Finnish name ''Iskusevi'', whereas Volodislav is represented by the Norse Uleb (''Óleifr''). Among the 27 agents there are some who have Finnish names, but none with Slavic, while among the 26 merchants there are three with Finnish names and two with Slavic.Melnikova, E.A. (2003) ''The Cultural Assimilation of the Varangians in Eastern Europe from the Point of View of Language and Literacy'' in Runica - Germ. - Mediavalia (heiz./n.) Rga-e 37, pp. 454-465

References

Sources

* Повесть временных лет, ч. 1—2, М.—Л., 1950. * Памятники русского права, в. 1, сост. А. А. Зимин, М., 1952 (библ.). {{DEFAULTSORT:Rus'-Byzantine Treaty 945 945 Treaties of the Byzantine Empire Byzantine Treaty 945 10th-century treaties Byzantine Treaty 945 940s in the Byzantine Empire 10th century in Kievan Rus'